Kevin
R. Haylett PhD

Welcome
to my site, it details some of my background and interests including
Writing, Horology and Medical Engineering

Writing

My
hobby is cycling. When I'm riding my mind often wanders. Recently I
put some of these thoughts and ideas into to a book of short stories.
Why not have a read? I genuinely think you may enjoy them. The book
would make a great gift for any cyclist and be a good read for
everyone.

I'll
be writing a summary describing the invention and its advantages over
the coming weeks. For those that read and understand the patent
application they will soon realize the beauty and elemental
simplicity of the design. And, importantly, how easy it would be to
implement the escapement as an addition control element to standard
mechanical timepieces. For example, to improve the accuracy of
mechanical watches that have escapements that use balance wheels.
This would enable high precision time keeping without the need for
complex complications like a tourbillon.

Background

Over
the last couple of years I've been working on developing a range
watch and clock escapements. I am specially interested in using a
tuning fork to make an all mechanical tuning fork watch. Previously
mechanical tuning forks have been combined with a simple
electromechanical drive to make watches and clocks.

Interestingly
a recent patent
awarded to Ilan Vardi, was quite similar to my early design idea.
As a result I abandoned my patent application due to the closeness of
the design although there were a few practical but minor differences.
Again for those interested here are the copies of my abandoned patent
application and you will soon see the similarities to that of Ilan
Vardi.

Latest
developments - My
early work and Ilan Vardi's patent inspired me to develop a very much
improved and simpler idea using some different principles. Again I
now have working prototypes and again made an initial patent
application. The initial search has not revealed any similar ideas,
so this idea may be patentable. However, I am considering just openly
publishing the idea as a patent is of little use to me as an
individual.

Partners
sort - Developing
a mechanical tuning fork escapement was an academic challenge and I'm
just a one man team. As a result I'm looking for any support and
welcome any interested parties that may wish to help me develop my
latest ideas. I would emphasize that I have working versions of my
latest escapement uses a mechanical tuning fork in an optimised and
efficient manner compared with previous approaches!

Medical
Engineering

I
have also have considerable experience in Medical Engineering having
worked for over 20 years in the NHS. This is detailed below where you
can also download some of my work.

Research

My
interests include developing and carrying out research in Medical
Engineering and Clinical Physiology. I try to keep
actively involved in a number of research areas, these
include:

The
use of neural networks in the analysis
ofcomplex data.

Pattern
detection and classification in complex data such as medical time
series and images

Statistical
analysis

The
process of clinical decision making.

Ergonomics
and human factors in surgical theatre and equipment design.

The
analysis of GI measurements with a particular focus on
understanding and improving measurements of oesophageal
function. The modelling of physiological
systems.

This
work includes both independent and collaborative research on a range
of subjects ranging from analysis of complex time series data to
ergonomic assessment of new medical devices. A list of recent
presentations and publications can be found on my CV and examples of
my work can be downloaded from the Downloads page. My other interests
include the active mentorship of a wide range of clinical staff.

Medical
Engineering

As
part of my managerial roles I am also interested
in all aspects of Medical Equipment Management. My main roles
relating to medical engineering include:

The
development and management of the Departments Medical Equipment
Information management system. This is the IT system which is
used to manage all aspects of equipment maintenance in the Trust.
This is an Access based system which I have developed
over many years.

The
administration and management of the maintenance contracts which
fund the department.

I
have amassed a wealth of experience, with over 22 years
in the UK's NHS, much of which has been as
a senior member of staff with a large Medical
Engineering Department in one
of the Uk's foremostteaching hospital Trusts. The
challenges are always changing and varied as both the techniques and
NHS are continuously developing

Professional
activities

I
am a Chartered Engineer and member of the Institute of Engineering
Technology (IET). I have a wide knowledge of medical equipment,
computers in medicine and their role in data modelling and analysis.
Continuing to develop my skills and knowledge is a constant
challenge. I have played an active role with the Association of GI
Physiologists and my experience has been rich and rewarding and I am
looking forward to continue to develop my career in medical research.
My management interests have also included the proposal to state
register staff who carry out maintenance, repair and servicing as
'Clinical Technologists'. If you are interested in 'Clinical
Technologist' registration you the following reports made for the IET
and IEE
(follow IETand IEElinks )
and for the latest open meeting with the NHS Chief Scientific Officer
regarding this subject (follow this Link).

If
you are interested in 'Clinical Technologist' registration you may be
interested in the reportsI
have made for the IET
and IEE
(follow IETand IEElinks )
and for the latest open meeting with the NHS Chief Scientific Officer
regarding this subject (follow this Link).

Also
if you are interested in issues related to supporting medical devices
the following document may be of interest:

PhD
and MSc - Readers Guide

The
files are in the adobe format. A reader can be downloaded
from www.adobe.com.

All
figures and tables are cross referenced in the text with
hyper-links

The
Adobe table of contents allows the document to be easily
negotiated

This
work is fully copyrighted and details of the copyright are
included within each thesis

The
files will allow you to view and print them but not to select, or
copy. Should you require further information, or wish to use the
images contained within the document. please contact me.

Overview

This
research started with the development of a system combining manometry
and video fluoroscopy to enable a more detailed analysis of
oesophageal manometry data. The first stages of the work were
submitted as an MSc in 1996. Although fluoromanometry has been
previously carried out using perfusion based manometry systems the
goal was to develop a system that could be used in every day clinical
practice using miniature strain gauge based manometry system and
digital video recording.

This
was followed by further developments of the system and a clinical
study of fluoromanometry data from 25 patients, this formed the core
of the research presented as a PhD thesis in 2000. This work included
looking at mechanisms of modelling the system of excitation of the
oesophagus and examining the complexity of the signals and
information gained from the study. It also includes some simple
modelling examining the parameters that need to be measured to
quantify acid clearance, levels and swallowing efficiency. The thesis
finishes with an examination of some new techniques that may be
useful in future oesophageal and GI studies

Notes
to readers

I
would be grateful for any comments regarding the results and work
presented here. It is of note that there is little evidence of
medical engineers and physical scientists being involved in GI
studies with most research coming from a clinical perspective. The
work presented here, although involving a collaboration with
clinicians, has followed a more medical engineering based direction
of study. It is hoped that this will be of interest to both
clinicians and medical engineers and they will be able to
follow the arguments and details presented.

This
work takes a new look at pH signals and extracts functional
information regarding swallowing performance. First clearance
curves are extracted from 24 hour pH recordings these are then
fitted to a formal model of clearance. These are then compared
between between two groups. A web publication (Copyright Haylett,
2011) can be downloaded here:

Example:
This shows a web based example of the basic technique developed
within this work.

Analysis
of ambulatory oesophageal manometry

My
latest research has also involved investigating and improving
techniques to analyse ambulatory oesophageal manometry. Ambulatory
manometry was first introduced in the mid eighties but has
gradually gone out of fashion. Initially there was great
enthusiasm for this technique. Standard laboratory based
oesophageal manometry had been and still is problematic. With just
a small window of observations how do the results relate to day to
day swallowing activity and
symtoms? The results from laboratory studies are still
problematic and the relationship between observations and diseases
is by far from clear. Terms and concepts are frequently introduced
and there is much confusion about what value the results can be
given. How should we interpret the results?

Typical
computer analysis is not trusted for 24 hour ambulatory recordings
(see page 5 for a simple model of reflux and page 6 for a
reviewhttp://www.medeng.net/volume_9_4.pdf).
This is largely because the waves are complex and the algorithms
used are linear only detecting previously well defined patterns.
Small signals and ‘noise’ can disrupt the analysis.
Importantly anything not predefined is not captured by the basic
peak detection algorithms.

The
data mining approach

In
our approach a simple data mining technique is used. This
described in the following papers presentation.

In
summary all possible events of interest are collected and then
clustered using a Kohonen self organising feature map. These
clusters can then be explored by the user. In addition post
cluster classification can be carried out and results compared
between subjects or groups of subjects